10 Reasons Why You Should Have A Bad Feeling About The Petition For George Lucas To Direct Star Wars: Episode IX

There’s a petition for George Lucas to direct Star Wars again and it’s a worse idea than Greedo shooting first.

Recently a Star Wars fan by the name of Yuri Luiz started a petition to get Episode IX director Colin Trevorrow replaced by original Star Wars creator George Lucas. The petition in its entirety reads:

Bring back George Lucas for the Star Wars movies. Put the father of the franchise as director of Episode IX. We really want this, please .

We have no problem with Colin Trevorrow, but he’s not the right guy to direct Star Wars Episode IX. George Lucas as director of Episode IX would be the perfect way to end this new trilogy and make an epic farewell between the Father of Star Wars and the whole universe of the galaxy far, far away ….

We would like to see him again involved with the franchise. Thank you so much.

Trevorrow responded politely enough to the petition but I won’t. A petition for George Lucas to direct Star Wars: Episode IX is even more laughable than the petition to build a real-life Death Star. George Lucas coming back to direct Star Wars again is a worse idea than the Star Wars Holiday Special. He’s not the director we are looking for and here are ten good reasons why.

10. He Relies Too Heavily On CGI

This looks like Xbox…the original

For some reason (well, the advent of digital filmmaking and Lucas wanting to continue pushing the technical boundaries of filmmaking, to be specific), when making the prequels George Lucas ditched all of the cool sets and props that made the original trilogy great and opted instead to shoot actors against a green screen and add everything in later. This is why Episodes I-III (and especially Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith – The Phantom Menace was still shot on film, at least) look like video games, and not recent ones, either. The unavoidable truth of CGI is that it ages badly. That’s why C-3PO from A New Hope is always going to look better than C-3PO from Attack Of The Clones despite the fact that the first movie came out twenty-five years earlier.

On the left is a man in a suit on the right…pixels

If George Lucas were to pick up where he left off with Star Wars, we would no longer get the healthy mix of practical effects and necessary CGI that J.J. Abrams employed on The Force Awakens but instead some kind of digital hellscape full of endless waves of racist aliens and robots.

9. He Doesn’t Understand Humor

Boss Nass is only laughing so hard because he read the script

This is comic relief from early The Empire Strikes Back (while they’re still on Hoth), considered by many to be the best Star Wars film:

THREEPIO: Don’t try to blame me. I didn’t ask you to turn on the
thermal heater. I merely commented that it was freezing in the
princess’s chamber. But it’s supposed to be freezing. How are we going
to dry out all her clothes? I really don’t know.

Artoo beeps a stream of protesting whistles.

THREEPIO: Oh, switch off.

That’s was written by Lawrence Kasdan as was this humorous exchange from The Force Awakens:

Han: So, what was your job while you were based here?
Finn: Sanitation.
Han: [pushes Finn against a wall] Sanitation?! Then how do you know how to disable the shields?
Finn: I don’t! I’m just here to get Rey.
Han: [exasperated] People are counting on us. The galaxy is counting on us!
Finn: Solo, we’ll figure it out. [smiles] We’ll use the Force!
Han: That’s not how the Force works!
Chewie: [annoyed grunt]
Han: Oh, really, you’re cold?

It’s no sophisticated Oscar Wilde level wordplay but it’s worth a chuckle and it’s a thousand times better than what we have in the Phantom Menace:

JAR JAR: Dissen berry berry bad.
(steps in ooze)
Ooooh…icky…icky…goo.

That is from a script written by George Lucas, the ooze is poop by the way. Lucas’s full understanding of comedy can be pretty much be summed up by the character of Jar Jar Binks : toilet humor + baby talk spoken with a racially insensitive accent = comedy gold. If George Lucas directs Episode IX prepare for fart jokes and pratfalls aplenty.